


On the Subtleties of Damnation

by AmunetMana



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Demon Dean, Incest, M/M, arguably an ambiguous ending, season 10 references, season 5 references, soul mates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 14:39:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5931994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmunetMana/pseuds/AmunetMana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's always been this thing between them. Dean knows that better than anyone, but he also knows, first hand, why they can't ever act on it. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t wish it could be different, every day that goes past.</p><p>5 times Dean and Sam could have named the thing between them, and 1 time they did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Subtleties of Damnation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ReluctantRavenclaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReluctantRavenclaw/gifts).



> for Una, who does not ship Wincest but lets me rant about it all the same.

1.

 

"There are different kinds of soul mates," Cas tells Sam. They’re back from Heaven (again) and Dean’s woken up scrabbling at his chest like he never did when Cas had just borrowed the amulet. Sam is missing, not that Dean blames him (probably a lie) but he hears voices from the next room over. He creeps to the door and presses his ear close, hearing Cas’ low tones vibrate their way through the furniture and door till they reach his ear. Dean stays his side of the door as though Castiel can't tell he’s there, eavesdropping. "Whatever Zachariah did to your heaven, you shouldn't believe it. You two will always be together."

 

It's a lovely story, Dean thinks, tiredly. But Dean can't forget Sam's heaven, free from dad and free from him. He thinks he must see them more than Sam does now, although they’re nightmares in his mind, not dreams blissful enough to form a heaven. Sam leaving him over and over. Dean can’t forget. Won't forget that Cas, even Cas felt the need to add a disclaimer - different kinds of soul mates. But that’s a whole other thing.

 

Dean closes his eyes, and there's a chubby toddler tottering towards him, eyes bright and fixed on him like he's the only important thing in the world. The only thing worth looking at.

 

He remembers a teenager, curled around him in bed, closer to him and with less shame than he should have at that age.

 

Different kinds of soul mates. Even when Dean gets it right, he gets it wrong.

 

~

 

2.

 

They never get moments like this. In the cool and the quiet, outside under the stars and for once in their goddamn lives, not fearing attack. If he dies, Dean thinks, and he doesn't wind up right back here in this field when he hits heaven, he'll know for sure someone's been tampering.

 

The grass is still and soft beneath them. They’re both laid on their backs, side by side, basking in the still and the hum of the world about them. If this was a chick flick, Dean thinks, the world would be holding its breath. This would be a magical place. A place where love could overcome all, where true love prevails, and people could be together however they wished. As it is, this place is special precisely because it’s _not_ magical, and he's never been able to breath more easily. And the world still waits out there, ready with _monsters_ and _demons_ and _hate_. But it’s far away and muted here, and Dean is sharing it with the one and only person he wants to be sharing it with.

 

His hand feels along the grass, and Sam's is there, waiting. Their fingers curl together, and Dean’s breath hitches, for just a moment. His fingers tighten, and he never, ever wants this night to end. He can hear Sam’s soft breath, and although he doesn’t look at him, he can picture his baby brother well enough. Gazing up at the stars, same as him, Sam’s free hand resting on his chest, moments away from clutching at the fabric, as if to anchor himself in some way to reality. To the tangible, to the real, to the here and now. Dean grips his hand tighter, and hesitantly, his thumb sweeps back and forth across Sam’s knuckles, and he hopes and wishes it could convey everything he’s never going to find the balls to say. Sam shifts, ever so slightly, and Dean’s eyes close at the soft sound of Sam’s breath.

 

"I know," Sam says, quietly, and his grip tightens to match Dean’s. “I know.”

 

Yeah.

 

So does Dean.

 

~

 

3.

 

"He told me, you know," Adam tells Dean, and there's no judgement in his eyes. Well. Not much judgement. Dean’s always admired that about Adam, the way the kid (and even ghoul-Adam) had just taken everything into his stride so easily. Despite his arguments with Sam (that he still stands by), and what actually did happen in the end, Dean knows Adam would have made a great hunter. There’s coffee in front of both half-brothers, and Dean can’t remember why he’s there, or why he’s with Adam. "So what about you?" Adam continues, staring into his mug like he can divine answers out of it.

 

"What about me?" Dean snaps back, and immediately feels bad for it. He doesn't want to feel bad. He thought he was past all that.

 

Adam sighs, terribly put upon as he fiddles with the handle of his mug. "Sam told me - and I fucking quote - he cares for _you more than he should_." Adam leans back, and Dean avoids his eyes as they finally flick up from the hot liquid in his mug. "So. Do _you_?"

 

Dean re-evaluates the realism of chick flicks. His throat stutters, his hands shake, he bites down on his lip.

 

"Yeah," he says finally. "Yeah. Of course I do. Of course I fucking do."

 

All that build up, and the words sit in the air as naturally as if he'd just stated the weather. So much for soaring orchestras and choirs of angels singing the hallelujah at the top of their lungs. Or at least, their vessel’s lungs. _Urgh_. On second thought, Dean will take the anti-climax any day over that train wreck of a mental image. The fewer angels in his life, the happier Dean will be, bar none.

 

Adam is quiet for a minute, either blissfully ignorant of Dean’s internal thought process, or deftly ignoring it with the same poker face that has served him well through ghoul encounters, angel coercion and more.

 

"I can't say I get it," he says finally, carefully. "But I don't get anything else about your lives either, except that you've already broken just about every taboo known to man." His head tilts, and Dean's fingers curl into a fist.

 

" _What's one more_?"

 

Dean says the words with Adam. He’s asked himself the same question plenty of times, after all. Talked himself round and round in circles looking for the answers that will explain all the messed up feelings inside his brain, searching for anything that will either stomp them out or make them finally make some kind of sense. The world isn’t kind enough to give him that sort of a reprieve. He couldn't give a decent argument if he wanted to. (There are so, so many arguments. Just not any Dean can find it within himself to give a shit about – but none he can lay claim to without feeling shame crawl up his throat.) His eyes are dark and he says nothing when he leaves, and neither does Adam. Probably for the best. Dean doesn't need to be talked into anything he can't take back.

 

~

 

4.

 

 _They're always missing each other by degrees,_ Dean ponders. He sits black eyed and blood stained and pictures his brother in that church where everything really literally went to hell. He pictured his Sam just as black eyed as his big brother is now, but free of the blood that covers Dean in inelegant splatters. The blood stains, Dean remembered, Sam kept reserved just for Lilith. Sam never did like getting his hands dirty – the thought leaves Dean feeling almost fond. The Mark of Cain throbs hot and sticky under his skin, and the First Blade trembles in his hand, hungry for more than Dean can give. Dean rubs his face, and winds up smearing blood across his cheek. Fucking ay. The bodies of seven demons sit (ha ha) at his feet, although numbers are a little hard to tell by this point.

 

_"Boy King," Sam had whispered to Dean across the gap between their beds, their hands carefully, disinterestedly linked across the divide. "The demon called me the Boy King in there." Pride, Dean remembered. Lucifer’s sin, supposedly._

_"Well that's a load of crap," Dean had told Sam, meeting his eyes despite the dark as his thumb sweeps a line across Sam’s knuckles. "You'd obviously be the Girl King."_

_The slap was worth it for the laugh it came with. Dean smiles as his brother laughs, and wishes he’d been there to fucking gank the demon himself for messing with Sam’s head like he had. The rage should have been shocking to him, but it’s for Sam. Dean had long, long since accepted he’d do anything for Sam._

 

The Boy King and the Knight of Hell, Dean mused. Oh if Azazel and Alastair could see their pupils now.

 

If only Dean could see his brother now, and not still feel shame welling up, viscous and sickening in his throat. His brother, so good, always trying, always _trying_ and having everything _fucking fucked up for him anyway, why does he even goddamn try anymore doesn’t he know they’re just going to shit on him over and over_ –

 

Dean should have given up years ago, he thinks, kicking a bloodied limb away from him with a snarl. If he was always doomed to end up black eyed and hellbound, he should have gone when he still had the chance to stay by Sam's side.

 

~

 

5.

 

Demonism cured by a few vials of blood. It's a pretty dream, and Dean can admire Sam for his incomprehensible optimism. Laying in a hospital bed drained of what seems to be everything but those few vials, Dean almost regrets his choice.

 

But Sammy is beside him, and he's finally run out of tears as his forehead rests against Dean's shoulder, and no one has ever been so perfect or so beautiful. Dean will fucking fight anyone who disagrees, IV drip be damned.

 

"I thought I'd lost you Dean," Sammy tells him, and Dean thinks there might be tears left in him. Sam lifts his head, and he looks so tired, and so so lost. "I thought this was it. You were finally gone."

 

"Wouldn't," Dean mumbles, voice rasping around a dry throat and through pale lips. "Wouldn't leave you Sammy. Not you. Never you."

 

Moving over to the side nearly dislodges one of the many needles puncturing him, and leaves him exhausted and breathless, but Sam climbs up beside him and Dean forgets how to complain. Sam is warm against him, clinging in a way he hasn't for so long (too long without death or destruction around them). The nurse is started silent when they enter, and Dean meets their gaze steadily, without guilt or shame.

 

Social niceties can go do one. Dean feels whole with his brother beside him in a way he hasn't in too long. He knows he doesn't deserve shit - but he's going to grab this close and hold on for as long as Sammy will let him. And fuck anyone who tries to take it away.

 

~

 

\+ 1

 

Dean is half a mummy despite his protests. Although he did win the fight to leave that goddamned hospital where the staff would all stare at them as though they didn’t know Dean could fucking hear their whispering, knew full well what they were saying about the way Sam stayed glued to his side, sharing his bed as often as they dared? So yeah. A mummy he may be, but he’s out of that place, and he’s with Sam. Let it not be said that Dean doesn’t know how to choose his battles. Besides, he really does feel _fine_. Anaemic still, sure, Sammy had really gone to town on that front, but he’ll be fine. He’ll _live_ , which is more than he’d hoped for at this point.

 

He’s underestimated how Sam felt about it though. Hadn’t understood until Sam had sat down opposite him, tense and drawn. Not until he says it.

 

"I love you."

 

There are no clarifications. No qualifications, no justifications. This is a silent discussion that has been brewing since Sam first breathed air, they've already said all that needs to be said without words, which makes this so much worse. Sam says the words now like he's giving up, like he's lost everything and this is all he has left, like the words they’ve never dared breath out loud, not to each other, not to anyone else ( _not even to Adam, not quite)_ and he sounds like he just doesn’t care. Like he’s prepared for Dean to reject him, like that’s even possible, and he wouldn’t even fight.

 

_Did Dean do this to his brother?_

 

Dean’s breath hitches painfully as he stands, moving to stand over his brother. He lowers himself slowly, gently, straddling Sam so softly it’s like he’s afraid Sam is the one who will snap under a gentle touch. Dean’s hands are on Sam’s shoulders, Sam’s hands hanging uselessly, like Sam is too afraid to move them, even a millimetre.

 

“Oh Sammy,” Dean breathes, and curves his hands around Sam’s cheeks. “My Sammy. I love you too.” Their foreheads bend together, and Dean can feel the shudder that rolls through Sam beneath him. “Never loved anyone like I love you.”

 

Sam is pliant but willing under Dean’s touch, and he guides Sam’s hands gently, circling them about his waist (ignoring the way his skin jumps and sparks like the plucked strings of an instrument), his own hands returning to Sam’s shoulders, before curling around the back of his neck, brushing gently though Sam’s hair. He feels like he’s being lit up from within, this close, and maybe his own mortality (debatable though that is at this point) has caught up with him too, because he is soaking it up, soaking in his brother, and he never wants to let go. Nothing has ever felt real the way Sam feels real.

 

Sam finds bravery from somewhere, and Dean feels the glance of lips across his cheek, grazing the corner of his mouth before pulling back, Sam’s cheek finding the crook of Dean’s neck, letting his lips rest there like it could even be an accident. Sam touches like he’s mapping Dean out, like he doesn’t already know Dean’s body by heart the way Dean knows Sam’s.

 

It’s already too much. If Dean doesn’t stop Sam, doesn’t end this before it really begins…

 

But his hands are on Sam too, tracing his body, skirting over hard muscle. He can’t feel scars through the fabric of Sam’s shirt, but he knows where they are anyway, and he uses them to guide his motions. Mapping constellations of could-be and never-will-be.

 

“I love you,” Dean repeats. “I love you Sammy, I love you, I love you.” He hasn’t said it enough. He’ll never say it enough, but this needs to end. It needs to end before he’s incapable of ever stopping. “But we can’t. We _can’t_ , Sammy. It – this – ” he presses his nose against Sam’s neck, inhaling deeply, “this can never happen.”

 

“I know,” Sam is silent for a moment before he replies, and his voice shakes. “I know that, Dean. I know we can’t. But I still. I just wish…”

 

Sam’s hand comes up to cup Dean’s face, and Dean leans into it, feeling Sam’s thumb brush dangerously close to Dean’s lips. If Dean tilted his head, not even an inch, he could kiss the rough pad of Sam’s thumb. Always by degrees. This time it’s down to no one but him whether they miss each other or not.

 

“I know, Sammy.” And Dean closes his eyes. And makes his choice. “I know.”


End file.
